Category: Music

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Released 43 Years Ago Today


Sphinx: Sphinx (1978)

Under the name Sphinx, Alec R. Costandinos and Don Ray released an album with two side-long tunes, Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter, telling the story of the betrayal of Christ. Judas features some monk-like chanting, and a pretty simple ascending and descending theme, but as usual it goes through a bewildering series of tranformations, including what sounds like a bouzouki duel, before climbing to a rousing finale. It’s also a good case study in how Costandinos keeps the rhythm section pumping out dance beats no matter how overwrought the orchestra gets. Simon Peter explores similar territory and about seven minutes in, it breaks into the most furious, kick-ass disco you’re ever going to hear.

Much like Costandinos’ work with Cerrone on Love in C-Minor, I was initially unaware of Don Ray’s contributions to this album, but upon subsequent listening it’s obvious.

And no doubt because of the subject matter, I don’t recall ever hearing it played in the clubs. I only stumbled upon it because it appeared in a full page ad in Billboard Magazine along with Costandinos’ other work.

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Released 46 Years Ago Today

https://youtu.be/hmIFcekpyBY

Carpenters: Horizon (1974)

What struck me most about this album back in the day was the audio quality. I don’t know what magic the recording engineers used, but Karen’s voice was crystal clear and it seemed you could hear every instrument used in the arrangements.

Their take on “Please Mr. Postman” remains one of my favorites.

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Repost

Songs from Another Life

Because gawd…do I need this today.

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Finding My Bliss and Following My Joy

My second order from HHV arrived today, and the quality of these disks is just as amazing as the first.

Absolutely silent background, and a mastering job that is letting me hear things I’ve never heard before—and that’s saying something considering the hundreds of times I’ve listened to these records over the years.

While I have it ripped from a borrowed CD in MP3 format, I never owned Tour De France on vinyl—at least not the full album and certainly not when it was initially released.










There’s been an  (unobtainable) bootleg pressing of Computer World on yellow vinyl for years, but apparently it’s so hinky not even Discogs will allow it to be sold through the website. That’s one of the reasons I jumped on this:








Yes, I already own a copy of the original Man Machine from 1978 on red vinyl; one of my “holy grails.” But it this is 180g vinyl and well, totally free of pops, clicks, and background noise. So it’s justified…








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Finding My Bliss and Following My Joy






About a month ago I ran across an ad for the soon-to-be-released reissue of all of Kraftwerk’s albums. Being ein großer Fan, naturally this drew me in. But to be completely honest I was apprehensive. On first blush, it seemed like one of those “too good to be true” things that have burned me on more than one occasion in the past

First of all, they were coming from Germany, and since COVID, I’ve run into nothing but grief buying records from sellers in the country. Secondly, they intially seemed a bit pricey, but adjusting for inflation over the last fifty years, were really no more than what I’d pay for a good pressing back in the day. (This has helped me justify paying $25-35 for records that would’ve cost $8 in the late 70s.)

Still, I was tempted enough that I threw caution to the wind and ordered two albums. They arrived earlier this week, and I have to say any misgivings I may have had were blown away by spending an afternoon in absolute aural bliss.

The quality of these recordings is phenomenal. 180g vinyl. The background is absolutely silent; what you’d expect from digital but with the overall warmth of analog. And the packaging is beautiful.





This is why I spin vinyl.

So…needless to say, I went back online and ordered 3 more: The Man Machine, Tour de France, and Computer World. I’ll post more after they arrive.

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Playlists…and My Failing Memory

Because the entertainment center on my MINI isn’t exactly cutting edge, playing music from my iPhone requires an expensive (and frankly, ridiculous) adapter that both supplies power and allows playback simultaneously. It wouldn’t be such a pain if Apple hadn’t—in their infinite wisdom, dictating how we should use our devices—gotten rid of the headphone jack a few years back. Power and signal were two separate cables that worked even in my old MINI.

The other option with this system is to play music through a USB stick. This is the method I’ve been using because it works and only requires copying the music files over from my Mac.

The one feature I haven’t been able to figure out until recently, however, was how to get my playlists from my Mac into the MINI. A bit of internet sleuthing and an inexpensive bit of software allowed me to export the iTunes (excuse me, Apple Music) playlists to that USB stick.

Problem was, they didn’t work. In fact, they weren’t even recognized by the MINI. It turns out it’s because the playlists are based on the file structure on my Mac—not the structure on the USB. Looking at the actual text embedded in the playlists revealed that undocumented fact, so I’ve spent the last several hours correcting paths on the stick to reflect where the actual files are located.*

My dance music playlists are by year, and while editing these playlist files, I discovered I have a lot (and I mean a lot) of the same songs listed in multiple years. Horror of horrors, but it should be an easy matter of sorting them out, right?

Not so fast. Back in the day I could create mix cassettes and organize the tunes by seasons. Now I’m having trouble remembering what year these tunes were in heavy rotation—never mind if it was summer or autumn.

The original mix cassettes that would’ve definitively nailed this down are long gone and the friends I lived through this period with are long dead, so I can’t reference either of them, so I’ve done what any normal, aging disco queen would do: I just left the lists as they were. I mean, does it really matter if Come Into My Heart/Baby Love was getting heavy play in 1978 or 1979? With so many other things going on in the world, this is the least of my concerns and I should just sit back and enjoy the tunes and the memories—even if I can’t attach them to a specific month and year any more.

*It should be noted I haven’t actually tested this yet, but I can’t imagine the problem being anything else.